About Me

I'm a mom, a wife and a teacher. A lover of chocolate and wine. I'm a Wolverine (Go Blue), and a diehard college football fan. I have a slight addiction to shopping. I spend most my free time at a soccer field thanks to my 10 year old Madeline, or a hockey rink thanks to my 6 year old Brady. I am the fun (some might argue crazy or silly) person behind the camera capturing these wonderful moments in your child's life.

Yes, I do have more babies to share…..Yes, summer is almost here. But today….today we talk money making opportunities!

Some of you may know about my slight addiction to cute clothes for my kids. From BabyGAP to Mini Boden to Matilda Jane, my kids closets could finance that European Vacation I’ve always wanted. Hmmmmmm, so why do I buy cute clothes again? LOL.

I learned about these “pop-up” consignment sales from friends on Facebook that live in the south. Yes, we have consignment stores here. And yes, I sell at them. But they take a cut and they decide the price. Great when you are the shopper scoring the $5 pair of Mini Boden Shorts, not good when you’re the seller getting $2.50 on a pair of shorts that resell on Ebay for $20. And yes, there is eBay. But sometimes it’s a pain in the butt!

With Rhea Lana you can set the price and get up to 80% back! 80%! Too busy to price and tag and enter your items? They offer a VIP option that you an sign up for now and get 50% back! I chose the DIY option. I participated in both the fall and spring sales and to date have made over $700!!!! More then I made at mom to mom sales, without the haggling of “will you take $.50 for this $40 Matilda Jane Dress?”

And because you’re all going to race over to the website and sign up now, be sure you mention me, Amy Porter 😉 They are taking VIP consigners right now!

I’m so excited to announce a first for Lil Sweet Pea Photography. Stylized Mini Sessions! What are stylized mini sessions? Well I’d be happy to share

As we all know, February is the month of Love, of Valentines Day! It’s also normally too darn cold to do sessions outside for most kids (I’m always willing to take on the weather with a daring soul). This year, I have found a wonderful little studio in Royal Oak to host my first ever All You Need is Love mini sessions. A week too late to be official Valentine’s sessions but never fear!

Your 20 minute mini session will be filled with all kinds of “love” based props. Kissy lips on a stick. Mustaches on a Stick. Of course paper hearts, Ballons, etc, etc. Got a boy? Don’t worry! This themed session works for boys or girls. And how cute would your son be sporting a “mom” heart tattoo? Or covered in red lipstick kisses?

For $95 you’ll get a 20 minute mini session, an online gallery with 5-10 images to chose from and your choice of an 8×10 print (no substitutions allowed). You will also receive 20% off any additional purchases you make!

Now is a great time to update that portrait of your lil’ sweet pea! And at a price that can’t be beat! Click Here to book your session TODAY! They will fill up fast!

As soon as my poor sister and brother in law got married, the clock began ticking. They needed to make me an aunt! And in February I got the news that they had! And somehow me, ME – Ms. Can’t keep anything a secret, managed to keep Sarah’s pregnancy a secret until she came home to tell our family. I went from MOH (Maid of Honor) wedding consultant, to pregnancy consultant. Sharing all those things NO ONE tells you before you get pregnant with my sister. They did the new trend of waiting to announce the gender via cake, and it was a boy! And “baby awesome” as he was named was due on my birthday! Sure, my sister will tell you 10-26, but I feel her OBGYN was off and clearly the day was supposed to be 10-27!

However that day came and went with no appearance by Baby Awesome. So we began to wait and wait and wait. And then finally on 11/3, I awoke to the text that my sister was in labor and I was finally going to be an aunt! And later that afternoon, Luke joined our family. There was absolutely no way I was waiting to meet that lil’ guy so my mom, Maddie and I set out later that week to meet Luke. Having birthed 9lb+ babies myself, Luke was the tiniest thing I’d ever held! Of course photos were a must while I was out there. And my sister, might have a slight addiction to etsy. Luke didn’t mind the football, or the hockey, or the tooth (can you guess what my brother in law does?), but the golf outfits he was just not having (my sister owns/designs for GolfHer Girl). Let me tell you, it was not easy to photograph this poor unsuspecting baby in MSU gear <puke> but I did it.

March can not come soon enough! When I get to see my sweet Luke again and of course get more wonderful photos of him

I can’t fully commit to the idea that fall is upon us until I have my session with Miss V. I believe we celebrated 7 years of photo sessions this fall. This year we decided to try a new location for both the Z family and myself, The RiverWalk area in Detroit. If you have not been down there (and I’m sad to say before this, I had only been to the fountains at the Ren Cen), it is a great place for a photo session! I had a blast photographing Miss V this year, even if she did make me work for it. One of the best parts of my job is watching the kids I photograph group up, almost along side my own. Thanks again Z Family and Miss V. I had fun!

Seems like the M family is all over my blog and facebook pages these days. Hey, what can I say, they love photos! And I love that about them. We’ve been in talks for a few years about shooting a session at the Big House (Michigan Stadium) for awhile. So this fall, while Michigan was off on a bye, and the skies were blue, we headed to A2 to do just that! Unfortunately we didn’t make it onto the field this time, but I have no doubt there will be a session on the field with these guys in our future. Thanks again M family. Nothing better then photographing Michigan Families (I’ll shoot Spartan families too, for an added fee….kidding). Go Blue!

This sweet girl has been in front of my camera since she was a wee lil’ one barely sitting up. Since then her family has moved “up north” to Toronto. So it’s always a treat when her mom emails me that they will be in the area and would like a photo session. The one thing about this family, they are a LOCK for amazing weather! And this session was no different. SA and I had fun spending some time exploring downtown Northville. Great seeing you guys again!

Now it’s not fair unless I start with admitting that H is family. Seems my little cousin Tara started off another baby boom in our family. It’s also a shame that I am SIX MONTHS late in sharing H! How did I forget to share this cute little guy on my blog? I was honored that my cousin Tara and her husband Matt let me photograph H. I can say now, of course 6 months later, that they are amazing parents and seem to really fit into parenthood nicely. Okay, enough chatter…..

Miss C entered into one of my favorite families this year (and no, I’m not just saying that so Maddie will end up front and center for her dances this year). Since then I’ve heard these stories of what a little devil she can be. Pure trouble. Ha! C was a sweet happy little girl for our whole session. Though she was upset for a bit that daddy took a work call rather then watch her perform. Nonetheless, I left the M family home once again with a million pictures to narrow down!

When I got the text with the picture of 2 pink lines, my response was “when are you due? I’m coming out”. It’s funny to think for 4 pregnancies, I was the first to know Kelly was pregnant and the first to know the gender even some go rounds. I met Kelly back in 2004 in an “online baby group”. We quickly discovered we lived near each other and once we both popped out our firstborns (exactly 2 weeks apart) we had to meet. Jump forward 8.5 years later and I get the pleasure of photographing her 4th and final child. I mean, you can’t have baby #4 miss out just because she had the nerve to move to Texas right after baby #3 (Brady’s future wife) was born.

Now Baby #2 (R) was such a diva, she actually went overdue waiting for my camera to return back from repairs before going into labor. I kid you not, I got the notice my camera had shipped, that night Kelly went into labor! Baby #3 (N) cooperated as well. Baby #4 (E) did NOT get the message. When we picked the date for me to come out and do E’s session we didn’t think he’d be 6 weeks old! Oh E, you’ve got a lot to learn mister. Nonetheless, I managed to get some great photos of E and the entire family. Yes, even dad joined us! For the first time in 6 years! Oh and did I mention we did all of this in 100+ degree Texas heat! I can’t believe how well this Michigan girl did!

I could fill this blog post with 100 pictures from the time I spent there. It was great to see my bestest mommy friend, get just enough dose of having a newborn to tide me over, and visit with my future son-in-law and daughter- in-law. (Yes, we have prearranged marriages for both Maddie and Brady to her kids). Thank you O Family! Miss you bunches! And I promise, next time Maddie and Brady will visit too